They rise proudly in the German suburb of Wiesbaden near the foothills of the Taunus forestland, the House of Saturn and the House of Delia. The Koening family decided to fulfil their dream by escaping the assiduous inner city lifestyle and relocating to a quiet neighbourhood in Sonnenberg.
The commission for this house was won in 1989 as a result of the competition ‘Aktion Poliphile’ initiated by Fritz KŸstner of the Galerie z.B. in Frankfurt. ‘Poliphile’ refers to the hero of the fifteenth-century allegorical romance Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, whose quest for his beloved Polia served as a source of inspiration in formulating the conceptual framework for the competition.
The project is composed of two houses which rise from the arable lands of north Wiesbaden, the House of Saturn and the House of Delia. Saturn symbolises the idea that time creates and then destroys it’s creation. He is the bridge between the opposites of his own being, a symbol of life's fallibility. His descendant Delia, the chaste goddess of youth, energy and health epitomises our modern times. Her dark-side, prudently well hidden, reflecting the cold gloomy, sluggish side of her neighbour, Saturn. Rotating about a south facing court the two houses form a private planetary system.
Saturn is solid and impenetrable, his roof is made of lead and the walls are of a deep red render. Towards the street the house is windowless and featureless with the exception of an arced cut in the flank wall. From the sheltered garden a deep double-height slot reveals the interior which is further expressed by a series of smaller openings in the side wall.
The street gate is of cedar. Upon entering, one is flanked by a wall which appears to get higher as the path slopes down towards Saturn. At the point of collision the corner of the house is cut back, the wall drops to path level and a door is revealed. The entry is at a half-level stepping down to the curving study and up via a narrow stair to the guest garret from which Delia can be viewed.
Derived from the forests to the north, Delia settles lightly upon the extended hand of her ancestor. Her walls are of sun-bleached cedar which in response to orientation are cut by glass walls, swept up into a canopy, punched out as windows or, as in the east, left fallow. Here the vertical strips which regulate the facades twist from north to south. This subtle gesture, which is revealed by the rising sun, emphasises Delia’s impermanence and in so doing underwrites her tension with Saturn.
Captured within the extended wooden skin of Delia, a roof garden offers a secret retreat and views along the valley. The grass is punctuated by sanded glass lanterns admitting light to the bathrooms below. Tucked behind the south facade a cedar stair metamorphoses into steel as it descends from the roof to the upper level which is occupied by bedrooms. A full length corridor/library overlooks the living area and court, bathed in light from a double height window. The stair becomes oak as it winds northward and downward to ground level where the main living accommodation is planned linearly against the cedar-ceilinged north passage. The kitchen, shielded by sliding sanded glass, commands a view of approaching guests.
The entrance is a bridge between the masculine red wall of Saturn and the fragile volume of Delia. The door is glass but the view is to the forest beyond. Delia is private. The entrance axis cuts the path of the stair, transforming the oak to black tile, as it continues to the lower level. On this floor cars may be parked beneath the over-sailing cedar box. Deeper within the labyrinth lies a crystalline chamber for hedonistic pleasure and for practical purposes a laundry room.
The only way to grasp this house’s concept it to read through the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and by understanding the journey that Poliphili took to seek Polia. There is a great deal more to discover than those documented by Architectural journal reviews; from the apple trees that supply mana on your journey to the house to the walking of the goddess Vine Arbour...
Here are some photos of how the house looks today, as can be seen, the bleached ceder has faded to a silvery grey as if it were an aged woodland
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